


ink and charcoal

by procrastinatingbookworm



Series: the secret of art is love [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 14:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10923678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Alexander Hamilton is an immigrant, an orphan, and an art student. It's not blood that connects him to his family, rather the ink and charcoal that he uses to immortalize them.George Washington is an ex-politician, a war vet, an art teacher, and Alexander Hamilton's legal guardian. Some of the faces that adorn Alex's assignments he knows. Some he doesn't.A story of companionship, of family, of love, unfolds on Washington's desk, Alex's signature crammed against the edges of the canvas.





	ink and charcoal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [consumptive_sphinx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Portrait](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5267783) by [consumptive_sphinx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx). 



The first picture is of Alexander's mother, his real mother, captured in the fierce lines of charcoal, shaded by hand (literally, by hand, there are fingerprints across the paper, from Alex's palms to his knuckles are stained black,) drawn with the desperation of forgetting. It's not a full portrait, and drawn at an odd angle, peering up at the face (obscured by strands of hair, rubbed into obscurity by a careful hand admitting its failing memory,) as though lying tucked against the figure. The woman is thin, pale, gaunt, dirty fingernails twisted in the sheets, pillow stained with something that the lack of color keeps indistinct. 

 _"we were sick,"_ _alex tells him once, waking from a nightmare and burying his sobs against washington's chest, clinging to him like a child. "we were sick, and she was holding me"_

Washington sighs, and sets the paper aside. Alex is in the next room over, no doubt awake and working, despite the late hour. Drawing, probably. He never seems to stop, whether drawing or writing or completing some assignment for another class. Martha worries. Washington does too, quieter.

*

The next assignment Alex turns in (the paint looks black streaked across Alex's arms and face, but on the canvas it's a dark blue, iridescent under the light) is a silhouette, four figures with their arms around each other.  Washington recognizes the curly hair and round face of John Laurens, the height and broad shoulders of square-jawed Hercules Mulligan, the lithe build and tied-back hair of Lafayette, and Alex himself, hair loose around his shoulders, head thrown back in a laugh.

How he somehow captured that scene while still being a part of it is beyond Washington's understanding. The boy has a gift, or maybe just loves his art and his subjects enough to force beauty onto the page.

*

The third is John Laurens by himself, a bust done in colored pencil and charcoal shading (again, the fingerprints, the stains on Alex's hands,) half his face cast in shadow, sunlight shining down on him at an angle. The side of his face caught by the light seems to glow, copper skin splashed by freckles, eyes closed, shoulders relaxed, chin tilted up, eyelashes resting against his cheeks, catching the sun. His hair is down, curled around his face, in wisps across his forehead. The thin white line of a scar peers from beneath a pale blue t-shirt.

Washington smiles, glancing at the photograph on his desk, Alex and John with their arms around each other, younger, grinning. Every detail of Alex's drawing is undeniably perfect.

*

The fourth is less obvious. It's a hand, dark-skinned and soft, with callouses that indicate a writer, or perhaps an artist, gripping an old-fashioned pen. The tip digs into a piece of what looks like parchment, a swirl of ink breaking the creamy surface. Washington thinks it might be James Madison, Alex's partner on the calligraphy project. one of the fingernails is painted purple. Definitely James, then. He remembered Thomas Jefferson's brief stint as a nail artist, and James had never been able to say no to Thomas.

_"come on, jemmy, it'll look cool!" thomas held out the brush, dripping violet polish onto the table. "please?" he sounded like a child, grinning past the black curls that had fallen into his eyes. his own fingernails were painted a variety of colors, bright against his dark skin. "fine." james said, offering his right hand to thomas. "but just one nail."_

Washington smiled, and set the drawing aside.

*

The fifth is a retreating back, head turned just enough to show the curl of a smile. It's Aaron Burr, another of the art students, in a green t-shirt, the line of his jaw smooth-shaven. Again, the charcoal shading, this time all the way up to the middle of Alex's elbows, mixing with green paint and the brown of Aaron's skin. His buzz-cut hair is meticulously drawn. "talk less," Aaron seems to be saying, a phrase Washington heard repeated to Alex, then parroted to Washington on car rides home ( _"can you believe him? that's a ridiculous philosophy!"_ ) "talk less, smile more."

The carefully precise ridges of Aaron's spine belie any attempt at coldness, though. Whether either of them are aware of it or not, Aaron is a part of Alex's family. Washington takes points off for the lack of a background, laughs, and goes on with his grading.

*

The sixth is John Laurens again, bundled in a scarf, honey-colored hair dusted with snow. This one is watercolor, and the features lose some of their precision in this medium. Alex hates it, Washington has heard enough complaints in the two weeks from the assignment of the project to its due date. He hates how the control slips away in watercolor. Even without the perfect lines of colored pencils or a thicker paint, everything that John  _is_ is obvious. The scarf is red, and too long, winding around John's shoulders before it slips off the canvas.

Washington wonders if John knows how deeply in love with him Alex is.

*

The seventh isn't allowed to have a human subject, so Alex and Thomas Jefferson draw each other's footprints. Alex's drawing is in paint, (four shades of brown and grey on his wrists and face) the ridiculous high-heeled boots that Thomas so often wears stamped in mud. Thomas draws Alex's sneaker-print in wet concrete. The two of them have an odd relationship. They ruin their shoes for each other's drawing one day, criticize the sketch the next, half-insultingly praise the finished project later that week.

Washington gives them both top marks, and makes a note to assign them to more projects together. Their styles compliment each other.

*

The prompt for the eighth is an animal, and Alex turns in two drawings, one a charcoal sketch of Thomas' hair ("it's an animal all to itself" Alex jokes,) and the second of the feral tomcat that eats the scraps Martha leaves out for him, that they've all taken to calling "Alexander II" for a reason they can't really put into words. Martha's hand is in the picture, offering a scrap of lunch meat to the mangy thing, and Washington can almost hear the soothing humming that she always uses to coax the cat into calmness.

*

The ninth makes Washington's breath catch in a way he's unaccustomed to. The assignment was about trust, something or someone you knew you could always rely on. Washington wasn't sure what he expected, maybe another of John Laurens, or Hercules Mulligan, or Alex's favorite pen, or Martha, or the cat, or the blanket he always kept on his bed, (it had been patched and re-patched so much that only threads of the original remain) or perhaps the house, or the school.

But it's his face he sees looking up from the paper, the first full-body portrait Alex has ever turned in, Washington himself. Alex has captured the image of him perfectly, in ink and charcoal, trying to look stern past his smile, and the glimmer in his eyes, somewhere between amused and overjoyed, contained behind a mask of quiet approval.

There's a single word other than Alex's signature on the paper, and Washington has to look away and wipe his eyes when he sees it.

"Dad"


End file.
